Drift
by laZardo
Summary: T Rated because this chapter centers around a drowning. But it's still a Ridge Racer fic, I swear.


_Disclaimer: Drift is a work of fanfiction by Bud Muncher Productions. Ridge Racer is a registered trademark of Namco Bandai Inc. All cars and characters used in this fanfiction except those characters created by the author are copyrighted to aforementioned country. Any similarity to real-life and/or other literary vehicles and people, respectively, are purely coincidential and quite bizarre._

-o0o-

**Prologue**

_Somewhere on the Mediterranean Coast_

Tristan Walsh opened his eyes, but it was too late.

The curse of the 13th Racing Kid had taken hold.

The windshield of his car had been pulverized by the impact of the collision. The cockpit of his car was completely inundated, making it less than the ideal time to resume breathing.

Tristan had not even begun to unfasten his seat belt when he attempted to breathe. The water had already flowed into his throat after he had been knocked out.

He looked out the driver's side window at the ivory-white #0 Kamata Angelus that had taken the plunge with his own car. Its craftsmanship allowed the cockpit to remain virtually airtight as it sank to the bottom, but it wouldn't be long before its cockpit would be flooded, from the bottom up.

_Rita..._

The shadows of death were swirling toward both of them. He could see them going for the angel first.

Rita Nagase was also awake when the shadows came for her, knocking on her windshield. She seemed all to happy to go with them as she unfastened herself from her seat, though she was aware still pretty much alive.

But before she made any more moves to escape, she looked out of her driver's side window - her car being right-hand drive - at the #66 SVF Eternal not more than a few meters from hers. The shadows were still a good 10 to 20 feet from his car.

"Are you all right?...Tristan?" Rita asked, softly. She could barely make out the demon still in his harness, clutching his throat as air bubbles rose and clung to the ceiling of his car.

Her distraction was broken with more knocking and frantic gestures from the shadows to get the hell out of the car. She took a deep breath as she clicked the door handle open, unleashing a torrent of water that literally flushed her out into the clutches of the shadows.

Rita looked back down at the demon's car as it faded into the blue. The light began to embrace her as the surface neared and the pressure on her body quickly relaxed. She hoped the demon would be all right.

She swam up into the blue expanse, toward the glittering light of heaven. Amidst Tristan's pain and in his blurring, darkening vision he could see her wings trying to push away the shadows that were struggling to hang on.

"Rita...my...angel..."

Tristan Walsh coughed up the last glob of air in his lungs, and his hands gradually released their grip, and floated away. The angel that the demon once loved had finally abandoned him for the shadows and the darkness. He let himself slip into the darkness, but there was no more fear. Just acceptance.

And all was calm.

More shadows began tugging at him through the gap in the A-Pillar, trying to swat away the floating seatbelt to pull him out. But their efforts relaxed when they saw that glazed, empty look in Tristan's eyes as they opened his visor.

The curse of the Kid had come and gone.

Bill Walsh would have been watching his son racing through the finish line right under him from his suite overlooking the track's Granier Boulevard straightaway in the Mondale Towers, in some grand conclusion to yet another drift battle for the ages. Instead he was glued to the live footage of the helicopter lifting his son out of the water, on the big screen television provided to VIPs like him. It was all filmed from the helicopter that too would have been watching this race's conclusion.

Bill had broken into a heavy sweat. His heart pounded in his chest like a rabid caged animal.

"Please God...don't let him die..."

"God" wasn't with Tristan anymore. He was busy tending to his angels.

RT White Angel's Crew chief Ray Sanchez and everyone else in the white-suited team's garage breathed a half-hearted sigh of relief as the team's angel breached the surface of the water, gasping for air. The same shadows that had been pursuing driver Rita Nagase were the same ones helping fasten her onto a floating stretcher to be lifted into a waiting helicopter.

Reiko Nagase was already in her designer white dress and on her way down from her penthouse suite in the Mondale Tower opposite Bill Walsh's to what would be her biggest impromptu press conference yet. Not long after she would beeline to the hospital where her sister - and sister's ex-lover - were being airlifted.

Paparazzi greeted her as she exited onto pit lane, flashing her nearly blind with rare-and-soon-to-be-exclusive pictures of her not in her famous bubbly, sexy race queen poses. They didn't know Reiko's worry for her little sister was genuine. All they knew was that one of their video cameras was feeding live to the grand screen in the building's driveway, visible to the predictably stunned spectators.

Only a few reporters were actually getting the other points of view.

From the perimeter of the White Angel garage, ace auto-sports reporter Cam Watanabe recorded it all in his camera, silently sharing in the emotion that soothed the Archangels, as the team were known. This feeling was brought to a halt as orders were barked to him through his headset.

A victory for heaven could only mean a loss for hell, and for 3 days every other week, most weeks of the year, the two sides were literally next door. Wayans had a bad feeling about this as he made his way toward the garage known by most fans as the "Abyss."

"Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here." his half-joking mutter actually near his own earshot. This would be his biggest scoop yet in all his years covering the RRL.

At least since he first documented the "curse" of the Kid.

Hollow satisfaction, indeed.

Nicholas Alpen, manager of the 13th Racing Team, had tuned into the boat's radio as the angel was recovered, but the silence and formality chatter that followed was deafening.

Then there was one more piece of chatter, and it was if his own breath were stolen. He took off his headphones and let them clatter to the floor, a sickening feeling welling up out of his stomach and into his throat. Crew chief John Stone, standing next to him, put a hand on Alpen's shoulder in empty consolation as his manager buried his face in his hands and tried in vain to suppress his grief.

Not too far from the crowd and out of Wayans' field of vision, 13th Racing's star driver Liam Fortune had already parked the #13 Soldat-Rivelta Crinale, got out, and walked past the crowd fixated on his once-more-glorious partner. He'd already heard the news through his radio as he docked.

Now he ran a gloved hand smoothly over a shiny black helmet resting on a nearby table. The helmet's sole marking was a golden crescent that included the color of the visor and what appeared to be gold "horn" decals sprouting out of the visor's tips. It was not unlike the markings on his own helmet, but this helmet's decals were more exquisitely crafted.

A bright yellow number 66 decal was glued onto the back of the helmet, but Liam easily envisioned a number 13 in its place. In time he would proudly let it slide onto his head and bring it back to its rightfully deserved place in the team's prized Crinale.

The only other helmet like it was damned near 100 feet under the waters of Santa Vidal de Bay. The person wearing it didn't even hear an angel screaming his name from the helicopter as his motionless body was lifted onto a stretcher.

Liam's helmet concealed his grin. He'd been banking on the curse of the 13th Racing Kid to seal his place as the RRL's "Demon King." His new rival's safe recovery from the depths was an unexpected dent in the trophy, but he'd overcome her soon enough. And nobody would stop it now.

Not even the driver of the scarlet #76 Assoluto Fatalita, which had come to a halt near the edge of the road where an angel and demon had plunged into the ocean, locked in the heat of battle.

This driver, more experienced and battle-weary than either of the two warriors, had stood first-hand witness to the battle since it began years before, but until now had only seen it as the thrill of pure sporting competition.

As the camera from the RRL helicopter turned to face him, as the mistrals ruffled his racing suit, as the sun continued to shine as if nothing had happened, he started to wonder how and why it had to come to this.

-o0o-

_  
Commentary:  
To be continued, when I can finalize the basic plot. Fade in Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight." You know what to do, fellow readers. Shred it to bits and all._

_And bring out the dancing lobsters! - Bud_


End file.
